It might just be where they're located with relation to other lobes in terms of effort, have you tried going the opposite direction? I've never seen bent valves without kiss marks. I have seen valves halfway embedded in pistons before though haha

haha, thanks man. When I started working here in the back of my mind I was thinking "I may end up building an engine here". Well, one coworker blew up his E36 M3, then I killed the 20vt. I never built an engine before, but here is the place to do it.